


Holding out

by cryleigh



Series: Infinite [1]
Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alien Biology, Blood, Body Horror, Consensual, Dissection, Established Relationship, Gore, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Space AU, Xenophilia, headcanon heavy, rated explicit to be safe but it's not...toooo graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 07:35:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18205442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryleigh/pseuds/cryleigh
Summary: Wataru may hold the answer Eichi has been tirelessly scouring the universe for. The question is whether he'll last long enough to find it.





	Holding out

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [let me place you in my mouth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14165727) by [battour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/battour/pseuds/battour). 



> This is part of a sci fi au that's been plaguing my brain for the last month, and probably the first one-shot of a least a few more to follow.
> 
> This one in particular was loosely inspired by battour's april fools au eiwata fics. Please check them out if you're someone who can handle that kind of explicit/gory content, they're extremely well done and I'm a huge fan of their writing.
> 
> cw for blood/gore and dissection — I'm not super up on my biology so please forgive any assumptions I've made
> 
> As always, my twitter is @cryleighart if you wanna yell my way

“Wataru.” 

The call was expectant but not demanding. Important but not urgent. Wataru had come to recognize it, and what it meant. Eichi’s voice tended to lower a little bit when he was nervous, as if to overcompensate. To cover it up. He would deny it if Wataru ever pointed it out though, which he found adorably endearing.

“Yes, Eichi?” He called back, lifting himself up from where he’d been lounging on Eichi’s bed, enjoying the star-filled sky passing by outside the window. His bare feet landed on cold tile floor and he shivered a bit at the sensation. Being human was such a fascinating thing — they were so weak, so vulnerable, and yet because of it everything seemed so much more vibrant. More intense. He’d likely never even notice something as simple as warm feet on cold tile in another form. Humans were perceptive to the strangest things.

Eichi appeared in the doorway just as Wataru reached the threshold. He jumped a little, but a warm smile quickly spread across his face. 

“There you are,” Eichi said, sounding a little relieved, as if he’d expected him to have disappeared. Wataru thought that too, was endearing. As if Wataru would want to be anywhere but Eichi’s side. He felt Eichi’s knuckles brush against his fingers and he took his hand reflexively. It was something humans did for want of comfort it seemed, and something they didn’t normally do with just anyone. The fact that Eichi commonly held his made his chest flutter and ache. A peculiar feeling.

Eichi looked down at their connected hands, his breath seeming to stutter a bit as he inhaled. He suddenly looked troubled. “I’m sorry to ask you this-“ he started, although Wataru didn’t let him finish, lifting a finger to Eichi’s lips with a soft smile.

“Never apologize to me, your Majesty.” Wataru said reassuringly, his finger catching purposefully on Eichi’s lower lip as he lowered it from his face. “I would do anything you say without hesitation.”

Eichi’s smile seemed genuine and involuntary this time and he lifted a hand to his face as he let out a soft chuckle. “My Wataru, you are too kind.”

“Nonsense!” Wataru said, stepping away and regretfully letting go of Eichi’s hand to instead flourish it meaningfully. “I am just a humble servant of yours, just a lucky fool who is allowed to sit at your feet. You want to request something of me, yes? Then please let me hear it — although I think I might already know,” he added with a wink. 

Eichi chuckled again and reached out to take Wataru’s hand once more. He let him take it, glad for that familiar warmth against his skin. “Yes, I’m afraid I... I must keep trying.” He paused for a moment as he lead Wataru out into the hallways, slowing after a few steps to look back at him. “I truly am sorry, Wataru.”

Wataru purred delightfully as his fingers closed around Eichi’s. “Please drop the solemn pretence, Eichi,” he urged, his eyes twinkling playfully. “Although I know that this is important to you, there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy yourself in the process hmm?”

Eichi pulled him along with a bit of a delayed laugh as he shook his head. “My, you are dangerous Wataru, with how you make me forget myself. When you’re around it’s as if time has stopped completely.”

Wataru tipped his head to the side at Eichi’s tone. It seemed strained and forced, like he was upset. Ahh, he’d foolishly misspoken again, hadn’t he? Human were fragile creatures, he had learned — in both a physical and an emotional sense. Eichi was unfairly patient with him, and brushed it off when he made insensitive comments, but it still pained Wataru to know he’d hurt him somehow.

“I’m sorry, Eichi,” Wataru said quietly. Human anger and sadness was still something he wasn’t entirely sure how to navigate. “I’ve said something to upset you, haven’t I?”

Eichi predictably shook his head. “I could never be upset with you, Wataru,” he said, and Wataru felt his chest squeeze guiltily. Even though it felt terrible, he tried to hold onto the feeling. He wanted to remember it later, examine it. Curious. So curious. 

He focused his attention back on Eichi as he spoke again though, especially since his eyes looked so sad. “This is just...very important to me, so I would prefer it if you didn’t treat it like a game. Please try to understand that.”

Wataru processed this thoughtfully. It was true that he sometimes didn’t quite grasp why Eichi could be so serious at times. Eichi could sometimes be so buried in the details of things, and seemed to react so strongly — even if he didn’t always show it outwardly. But he supposed that was to be expected. He did not have the same luxury as Wataru to let things be, to let the laissez-faire nature of the universe balance itself out over the course of a century or two.

He nodded slowly, though he couldn’t quite get his expression to sit as solemnly as Eichi’s. He was learning to reflect his expressions, but this was one he was still learning. “I understand, Eichi,” he replied, and paused before honesty got the better of him. “Or...I’m trying to.”

“Thank you, Wataru,” Eichi replied, and Wataru was relieved that he sounded a little more at ease. They continued down the hallway to a flight of stairs that descended to the lower level. It was more sterile down here — less frequented, less like a home. This was where the majority of the machinery and inner workings of the ship were, so it was louder and a bit hotter. Eichi led him to a familiar door and pressed his palm to a panel next to it. It slid open with a sound like exhaling steam.

The laboratory was dark and cold, a vast expanse of emptiness even after Eichi flicked on the lights, blinking a few times at the sudden brightness. With no real medic on board, the room look abandoned and poorly maintained — well-equipped but its potential wasted. Wataru bounded inside ahead of Eichi and seated himself on the metal operating table, swinging his legs along to some tune he was humming to himself. 

Eichi stepped close to him, situating himself between his thighs and holding them firmly to halt their childish swinging before leaning up to press a chaste kiss to his lips.

“Lie down please,” Eichi instructed as he pulled away, and Wataru complied obediently, pulling off his shirt as he did. The cold from the metal bit unpleasantly at his bare skin, but he couldn’t help grinning giddily at the sensation. 

Eichi had turned away from him, pouring over a log book that he kept down here in the laboratory. He didn’t say anything, but he eyes flicked across the pages with a focused sense of purpose, and Wataru could practically feel the effort he was exerting.

“The skins grafts and transfusions haven’t worked,” he read aloud. “The flesh can change shape if separated from the body but... it doesn’t know what to change into without some kind of signal.” As interesting as it was to hear such an objective perspective about his body, Wataru had found after several sessions of this that he didn’t particularly care enough to commit this information to memory. As far as he was concerned, his body worked, and if there was anything Eichi could use from it then he was more than willing to let him take it.

Eichi tapped a pen to his lips pensively as he re-read his notes again and Wataru simply watched, trying to commit this face to memory. Eichi always looked handsome, but there was something about this face — the lowered eyelids as he scanned his papers, the firm set of his mouth, the way his eyelashes brushed against his skin. It was a beautiful expression, even if it was one Wataru didn’t fully comprehend.

“There’s something I’m missing.” He finally turned back to Wataru, running a hand along the edge of the operating table. Wataru could feel himself shaking in anticipation. 

“Where are you looking this time, Eichi?” He hardly dared to ask, lest his voice betray him.

Eichi didn’t answer, simply lifting a knife from the side table and drawing it delicately against the skin of Wataru’s stomach. 

“Heal yourself normally,” Eichi instructed as Wataru took a shuddering breath and released a sigh of relief. Eichi watched as the cut gaped open for a moment, silver blood beading at its opening, before it quickly sealed itself together, not even leaving a scar. Eichi gently wiped the blood away, admiring the seemingly untouched skin underneath.

“Beautiful,” Eichi said in a breath, and Wataru thought it was mostly to himself as his hands glided over Wataru’s stomach and torso, pressing into his body experimentally in a few spots.

“I’m going to open you up now, Wataru. Please stop the healing until I say so.”

“Of course,” Wataru replied with a smile, leaning his head back against the table and sighing as Eichi set the knife aside and leaned over him. 

Wataru gasped as a sharp jabbing sensation flared up in his stomach as Eichi plunged his claw-tipped fingers inside, tearing straight through skin and fat and muscle like a blade. There was an awful ripping sound as he closed his fingers into a fist and wrenched out the chunk of flesh, leaving a gaping hole in its place. Silver blood flew as he did so, across the operating table, spraying across the front of Eichi’s robes, speckling Wataru’s chest and face.

His chest heaved as his eyes slowly travelled downward, taking in the rip in his stomach. It didn’t particularly hurt, although it felt strange, like a faint burning that was steady growing hotter and itchier. 

Eichi placed the chunk of stomach he’d torn out onto the operating table beside Wataru with surprising care, flexing his mechanical fingers, now coated in a thick layer of shimmering blood. He hesitated for a moment, his eyes flicking up to Wataru’s face. He didn’t know what his expression looked like to Eichi right now, but he nodded silently as a signal to continue, and Eichi did without hesitation, bringing his hand down on Wataru’s chest this time, tearing long deep claw marks from his collarbone down to the hole in his stomach. 

Wataru couldn’t contain a moan at that, shuddering and writhing under Eichi’s touch. Eichi ignored him, bringing up both hands to dig into one of the deep rivets he’d made, grasping at his ribs and chest plate. With a grunt of obvious effort, he pried him apart with a sickening crack, exposing his chest cavity to the humid laboratory air.

His insides were not like a human’s, Eichi had realized when he had first done this. Perhaps it was because he didn’t know what the inside of a human looked like that Wataru couldn’t replicate it, or perhaps it was because there were limitations to his shapeshifting. Either way Eichi was glad for it, lest the answer he sought inside Wataru’s physiology disappeared every time he transformed.

His body was like an abstract painting in mercury and liquid metallics, a glittering, shimmering kaleidoscope of pulsing, shifting organs and crystalline bones. It was a little different every time Eichi opened him up, as if his insides were floating freely within his body. It was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, trying to find the piece of him that could carry the cure to his disease and having to start over from scratch every time.

He reached inside, a little unceremonious, pushing aside soft white organs and digging through ropes of intestines that shifted colour like chrome. Wataru let out another heady moan as Eichi reached into him, his arm disappearing almost up to his elbow as he scoured through soft tissues, eliciting erotic squelching noises as he did so.

“Wataru,” Eichi spoke in a low voice, patient but dangerous. “Don’t make me tear out those lovely vocal chords of yours. I’m trying to concentrate.”

Wataru whimpered in a high pitched voice as he bit down on his lip to silence himself. When Eichi looked up, his head was thrown back against the table, his body arching underneath him. A clear hardness was forming in his pants. He wasn’t normally quite this turned on by their sessions, and had Eichi been in a better mood perhaps he would have done something about it. But his pulse was beating loudly in his ears, a clock counting down the amount of seconds he had left.

Eichi sighed, ignoring Wataru’s state and turning back to the swirling shining mess at his fingertips. There was nothing new he hadn’t seen before. He’d already examined everything here, had already taken and tested samples, tracked hormone cycles. It certainly wasn’t his forte but between him and the ship’s AI he had pieced the functions of most of the organs together.

None of it was what he was looking for. 

A headache was already forming in his head when he pulled out his arm with a wet popping sound and lifted it to squeeze at his temples, forgetting for a moment that it was covered in blood and that he was now coating his face in it.

He must be missing something.

He bent over Wataru again, digging into him again with more roughness than before, his fingers cutting through soft tissues and shattering bones. He let out a growl of frustration as he pulled apart arteries and tendons, peering impatiently into any nooks and crannies in his body that he might have missed. Wataru had lifted his hands to his mouth, firmly sealing it shut as he let out muffled cries of desperation. 

His head was clouding a bit as it throbbed painfully, and he knew he was breathing harder than he should have been. He was getting sloppy, but he continued searching stubbornly. Everything looked the same — he’d seen this all before, there was nothing new here. Until a soft call of his name finally made him slow to a stop.

“Eichi,” Wataru said again softly. Eichi stared down at the mess before him. Wataru’s body was painted in silver now, the other luminescent colours lost in layers of thick metallic blood. He was covered in it too, coating his arms up to his elbows, thrown across his torso and dripping down the side of his face. 

“That’s enough, I think.” Wataru said gently, groaning as he lifted his mutilated body into a sitting position and took Eichi’s face in his hands, ignoring the fact that the change in position was causing his insides to spill out unceremoniously onto the operating table. Eichi looked into his face, feeling exhausted now that the adrenaline had burnt out. Wataru’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were still glazed over lustily, but he held his face so gently and tenderly as he brought their foreheads together.

“You look tired, your Majesty. Let’s continue this another day.” He said quietly, and Eichi’s eyes slid shut, savouring his warm floral breath on his face and the soft sound of his voice. 

“Alright,” Eichi conceded, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice. 

When he opened his eyes again, Wataru had already healed himself, although the table and the both of them were still covered in blood. Wataru pulled away from Eichi to stand up properly and steered him to one of the stools beside the operating table. 

“Please rest,” he urged, waiting until Eichi sat down. “I’ll clean up this time.”

“Thank you Wataru,” Eichi murmured, rubbing his forehead again. He was starting to feel a little faint, but sitting down certainly helped. He watched as Wataru retrieved a rag and filled a pail of soapy water before going to work on the operating table and surrounding floor, humming as he did so. Eichi watched his fluid, energetic moves as if hypnotized, hardly able to believe that just moments before he had lain torn open and in pieces. 

He finished cleaning much faster than Eichi would have — which had him burning with shame at the mere thought — and returned to his side, smiling cheerily.

“Shall I carry you, Your Majesty?” He asked, his excitement sounding nearly childish. Eichi shook his head. He could hardly stand being so useless next to him as it was. He couldn’t imagine his embarrassment if Wataru had to carry him on top of it.

“No thank you, although I appreciate the thought.” He stood up slowly, fighting a small bout of dizziness as he did and hoping his expression hadn’t become obviously pained as he did. Luckily, Wataru didn’t seem to notice.

Wataru hummed as they made their way back upstairs. Eichi moved much slower now than he did when they had first come down, but Wataru didn’t say anything, simply slowing to match his pace and taking his hand warmly to lead him up the stairs.

Eichi’s head was pounding, his steps heavy and his chest tight. Defeated, was the best way he could describe how he felt. He’d made no progress and he’d only exhausted his already weakened body. 

He couldn’t even help relieve Wataru, who he couldn’t help but notice was still breathing a little too hard and whose pants were still visibly strained.

He couldn’t help but feel utterly worthless next to Wataru who had endured literal torture and mutilation and was now bouncing along at his side as if nothing had happened.

Useless.

He wanted to cry, but the tears had dried up long ago. Crying would do no good anyway.

When they reached his room, he allowed Wataru to help undress him, and he tossed their clothes into a bin that slid out of the wall at his command. 

“Thank you,” Eichi said. He paused for a long time as Wataru watched him expectantly. When he spoke up, he tried to keep his voice level. “I would like to rest, Wataru. Please leave me be.”

He tipped his head to the side questioningly, eyes wide in confusion. “Are you sure, Your Majesty?”

Eichi laughed, and it was clearly forced. “I’m sorry, Wataru. I know you were... expecting something. But I’m much too tired right now.”

Wataru watched him curiously, and to Eichi’s dismay, didn’t move an inch. The alien slowly reached out a hand to Eichi’s, brushing the tips of their fingers together. Asking permission.

Eichi sighed, reluctantly taking his hand, and he brightened immediately. “I’ll rest with you,” Wataru announced, not leaving much room for argument. “I’ll protect you as you sleep, so you needn't worry.”

He really was much too good for him, Eichi thought impulsively with a thick swallow, tears of exhaustion actually threatening to make an appearance. Instead of answering, he simply leaned down to kiss Wataru’s shoulder and let him lead them to the bed, let him swaddle them both in heavy ornate blankets and let him huddle close, wrapping his arms around Eichi’s torso and nuzzling into the crook of his neck. 

Eichi felt one rouge tear slip out from the corner of his eyelid, and fell into sleep before Wataru had even finished settling in beside him.


End file.
